Volume 1 - CH 18

My Little Sister is not at the Game Store

It’s a rainy day in June.

The rainy season has already started, and it has been raining a lot this year.

With an umbrella in his hand, Haruta runs to ‘AIR’ shopping mall while covering his bag on his shoulder so that it won’t get wet.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

“Ah, thanks for your hard work, Saku.”

Haruta entered the mall, walked for a while and entered a certain store.

Sitting in her office is Minami Hinata.

She has a semi-long red hair down to her shoulders, and wears a silver earring in her left ear.

Sleeveless black blouse and white tight miniskirt.

Plus, an apron with the game store logo ‘Lucita’ on it.

She is plopped down on her table, fiddling with her smartphone lazily.

“You’re early today, Minami-san. How about your college?”

“Isn’t that the whole point of college? I can skip classes as I please.”

“I’m still a high school student.”

Minami is a second-year college student who goes to a university near here.

She started working at Lucita when she went to college, so she has been working here for over a year.

There is no changing room in Lucita’s back room.

So, workers here can just wear an apron over their usual clothes or uniform.

Haruta also taps his card, puts on an apron, and checks the whiteboard with the manager’s notice.

There doesn’t seem to be much to talk about today.

“Huh? Who was on the front just now?”

“The Manager. Well, I can run a store like this with no customers by myself.”

“If you came early, why didn’t you help?”

Accoring to the manager, Minami is a ‘delinquent part-timer’.

She often comes late for her shift, or even doesn’t show up at all without notice.

The reason why Minami hasn’t been fired yet, is probably because Lucita only has a few part-timers. Even if one person were to leave, the store will be short on staffs.

Part-timers often come and go from this store.

“Saku, shouldn’t you be looking for a new part-time job as soon as possible? It wouldn’t be strange if this shop went bankrupt tomorrow.”

“It hasn’t even been a month since I started working here, please don’t say such ominous things.”

Minami giggles at Haruta’s words.

That’s right, Haruta just started working here at the beginning of June.

He had an interview at the end of May when the store was short on staffs, so he was hired right away.

It’s late of June now.

Although he is familiar with the store because he has been a customer for some time here, he had no idea what to do when he started working here.

So, he is learning bit by bit about part time jobs.

“Well, Onee-san will go out and live my life for a while if this store goes bankrupt.”

“Minami-san, didn’t you say you live alone? Are you sure you can live without working part time jobs?”

“Not a chance, I only get a little allowance money.”

“Then, it’s not going to be great if this store goes bankrupt, right?”

“You worry too much Saku. Humans can live with anything.”

“Is that so…”

Even though he has only known Minami for less than a month, Haruta is well aware that this Onee-chan is a useless person.

Minami is a beautiful college student with a lovely face and outstanding style.

She wears no makeup, which is unusual for her age.

Minami said, ‘Makeup only covers my beauty’, but it’s obvious that makeup is too troublesome for her.

She doesn’t really care about her fashion, she always dresses similarly.

Nevertheless, she is actually beautiful without makeup, she has a petite but slender body, and huge b*****s.

Lucita has quite some customers who come to the store just to look for her, so she is an important person in the store.

She is not only beautiful, but she also does everything she needs to do at work, and she is attending a prestigious women’s college.

In other words—it seems that high specs alone won’t make you a respected person.

However, Haruta doesn’t dislike Minami.

Minami is friendly and easy to talk to, and on top of that, she is the only one who teaches Haruta how to do his job.

From the first day, she told Haruta to feel free to call her by her first name. Haruta really appreciates it because it made him less nervous.

Haruta is even glad that he chose to work here because of her.

“Ah, Sakuraba-kun is here too. Good work.”

“Thankyou for your hard work, manager.”

The door of the store opened and the manager entered.

He is a bearded man around 40 years old, who somehow resembles the world’s most famous plumber.

“Sorry but a customer just brought in a lot of stuffs, can you two come over right away? Sakuraba-kun, please take care of the cashier.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Wohoo!”

Minami and Haruta leave their office.

Haruta places a cardboard next to the cash register.

It is quite a big box.

Haruta can’t see the customer anywhere, probably they’re looking around the store until the valuation is done.

Haruta takes a peek inside and sees tightly packed games.

Many customers sell their old games via online websites nowadays. It is not easy to bring their old games to the store.

Haruta doesn’t sell his old games, but there are some people who come to the store to sell them.

“Hinata-san, this way please.”

“Yes.”

Minami and the manager check the box briskly.

They are checking them one by one quickly and accurately.

Sometimes there is nothing inside the disc case, so they need to check it thoroughly.

In most cases, they are not maliciously trying to sell the empty disc cases, but they rather have forgotten about the disc as they took them out.

“Saku, learn how to check them quickly so that Onee-san can relax.”

“…I’ll do my best.”

New part-timers can’t be trust to check them because they sometimes make mistakes in evaluating them.

It is different from basic purchase which price is fixed.

But when customers want to sell their old games, the prices go up and down depending on the condition, and it’s quite hard to tell the difference.

Although Haruta thinks he knows a lot about games, there are many games that he has never seen or heard of, so he still has a lot to learn.

“Oh, look.”

“Ah, welcome.”

A customer is standing in front of the cash register.

Haruta hurries to the cashier to serve him.

Haruta managed to learn how to use the cash register, but he still gets nervous handling cash.

Next door, Minami and the manager are still busy evaluating the games.

When Haruta went to this store as a customer, the only contact Haruta had with the staff was at the cashier.

Haruta even thought there were only one clerk in this store.

However, it can be said that handling the cashier is the easiest job in the store.

Besides handling the cashier, staffs here usually inspect and display merchandise, check the store, clean, and respond to customer inquiries.

But there are not many jobs Haruta can do now.

“Manager, the trolley should be emptied. Saku, I’ll do it later.”

“Ah, yes. Okay then.”

In front of the cash register, there is a trolley full of sale items.

Many of the items the customer brought seem to be older games, many of them will probably be displayed there.

“Hmm… it’s the latest game in the series, but it’s pretty old. I guess it’ll go into the trolley…”

Suddenly, Haruta sees something he shouldn’t.

A girl picks up a game from the trolley as if she is picking up an abandoned cat

‘Even these sale games have their good points.’ Haruta recalled.

Whenever she came into this store, she always ended up standing in front of the trolley with a serious look on her face, wondering which game she should buy—

“…hey Saku, don’t space out. Summarize the items that have been evaluated.”

“Sorry.”

Haruta came back to himself when Minami warned him.

It’s still too early to be spacing out.

Haruta chose this shop as his workplace because he wants to remember each and every memory he has with that girl.

Or perhaps, Haruta hopes he would meet that girl here one day.

But such sentiment would only trouble the manager, Minami and the customers.

The purchase is successfully completed, and Haruta went to his usual duties—

“Thank you for your hard work.”

“Uwahhh, yeahh, thank you for your hard work.”

The store closes at 8PM, and it takes about 30 minutes to close the store.

The manager still has work to do and can’t seem to leave the store yet.

As always, Haruta always brings his laptop to the cashier and looks around the store when has nothing to do.

Meanwhile Minami is checking the inventory and placing customer orders.

“Is the manager going home too?”

Haruta asks Minami as he takes off his apron and puts it in his locker.

Minami is sitting on her seat, fiddling with her smartphone.

“He often goes out for drinks with his fellow managers at AIR.”

“Well, okay then.”

“Saku, you’re strong, and you could’ve chosen anywhere else to work part time. Why did you choose this place out of all places?”

“Because I like games.”

“We are more like an antique game store. We only stock new major title games. This is a store for old game lovers who want to play old games.”

“I agree, even though we can play old games using emulators these days.”

“There are a lot of people who want to play them on their actual consoles, like me.”

“Hehh…”

Nowadays, people can install emulators into their latest game consoles to play older games.

Many of the games are even free, and it is not uncommon for young players to play them.

“That said, we’re the minorities here, and that means this place is struggling to survive.”

“Minami-san is very harsh about this store.”

“No, no, no, I don’t want it to go out of business either, you know? I used to be a regular. The manager took me in, and I got this part time job while I was kept enclosed.”

“The manager took you in…?”

“Wait a minute, Hinata-san! You’re a lifesaver! I was in trouble when all my part-time workers quit at once, I really owe you a lot, thank you!”

“Yeah, you’re welcome.”

Perhaps the manager heard what they were talking about.

“…the manager is also having a hard time.”

“The old man is also a video game enthusiast, he runs this store as a hobby. He has a condominium and an apartment inherited from his parents, and his main income is from the rent.”

“That sounds really elegant.”

Haruta actually feels sorry for the hard-working manager, but perhaps it wasn’t necessary.

“Well, let’s go home now. I worked up a sweat today.”

“Yeah…Minami-san, what are you doing…!?”

For some reason, Minami stood up and started to unbutton her sleeveless black blouse.

A black bra covering her ample b*****s can be seen. Her cleavage looks pretty erotic.

“I’m changing my clothes? I can’t go home in this sweaty blouse. Despite of my appearance, I’m still a maiden, you know?”

“A maiden wouldn’t change in front of a man, you know…?”

“High school students are just kids, a man is different from a boy, you know?”

Minami quickly takes off her blouse and puts on a black T-shirt which she took from her locker.

“…not all men in the world are rational like me, you know?”

“Except Saku, all of our part timers are college students or freelancers. I don’t change clothes in front of them. I will charge them money if they accidentally see me change.”

“High school students aren’t kids you know…?”

Haruta thinks Minami is treating him like a kid too much.

“Because I had a little brother…I can’t help but to see men younger than me as children.”

“Had…?”

“Yeah, that’s right. He’s so cocky, he sent me a screenshot of him getting 15 killstreaks on CS64 just now.”

“Can you please not use misleading words!?”

Because Minami said it in past tense, Haruta thought her little brother had passed away.

15 killstreaks on CS64 is pretty difficult to achieve even for advanced players.

It seems that Minami’s little brother is recognized as a serious gamer by Haruta.

“Come to think of it, Saku also plays CS64, right? What rank are you?”

“…SS.”

“Uehh, SS!? How much of your daily life do you sacrifice to get to SS rank!?”

“Well, I skipped school for a week and played CS64 a while back.”

“You’re a delinquent, aren’t you? Even I only skipped college for three days in a row at most.”

“I think that’s more than enough.”

“But isn’t it hard to get from S to SS rank in a week?”

“I played around 15 hours a day for the whole week.”

“Uhh…well, okay then.”

Perhaps sensing something, Minami cuts off the conversation.

Haruta is grateful because he doesn’t want to talk much about it.

Haruta doesn’t want to talk about—the reason why he was running away from reality and play games all day.

Playing games alone isn’t as fun as playing games with that girl.

When Haruta realize so, he even became more shut in.

“I’ve worked three days’ worth of jobs today. I should take a break for a while.”

“We don’t have such flexible shifts.”

Even though Minami is very clumsy, sloppy and delinquent.

The store manager seems to trust Minami the most among the part timers.

Haruta who has just began working from the end of golden week—is saved by Minami’s cheerfulness and helpfulness. Minami not only helps but also teaches Haruta a lot about his work, and on top of that, Minami is so easy going that Haruta doesn’t feel nervous when talking to his senpai.